Family Octodontidae Waterhouse, 1840. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1839:172 [1840]. SYNONYMS: Spalacopidae. COMMENTS: Includes Spalacopidae Lilljeborg, 1866. Sometimes considered the most primitive group of South American hystricognaths with numerous fossil genera from Oligocene on, but Reig (1986:418) reserved this distinction for the Echimyidae. Ctenomys is often placed here as subfamily, and is closely related to octodontids (see comments under Ctenomyidae and in Cook et al., 1990:22-23). Chromosomal variation is not as conservative as previously thought, and is 2n=38-102.

{"references": ["Reig, O. A. 1986. Diversity patterns and differentiation of high Andean rodents. Pp. 404 - 440, in High altitude tropical biogeography (F. Vuilleumier and M. Monasterio, eds.). Oxford University Press, New York, 649 pp.", "Cook, J. A., S. Anderson, and T. L. Yates. 1990. Notes on Bolivian mammals. 6. The genus Ctenomys (Rodentia, Ctenomyidae) in the highlands. American Museum Novitates, 2980: 1 - 27."]}

Published as part of Charles A. Woods, 1993, Order Rodentia - Suborder Hystricognathi, pp. 771-806 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press on page 787, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353083